Transform your looks and your life
from the inside out.
A self-proclaimed “informed layman,”
Kat James’ rare personal perspective
on self-transformation and real (as
opposed to merely apparent) victory over an
eating disorder has given her insight into compulsive
self-sabotage—and freedom from it—beyond what many doctors and nutritionists can grasp. As someone who actually transformed herself beyond recognition (dropping
10 dress sizes, she also reversed a serious liver
disorder, chronic eczema and myriad other
problems in addition to banishing a 12-year
eating disorder). Kat has faithfully translated
her principles and the copious medical references
that now support it, into a book and a
cruise experience that are as exciting to experience
as they are physically rewarding.
As Kat explains in the introduction of The
Truth About Beauty, “My motivation for
writing the book runs deep. As a teenager, I
developed a compulsive eating disorder that
dominated my life for 12 years. That bleak
period included the first five years of my career
as a makeup artist in New York City, where I
worked with celebrities such as Sarah Jessica
Parker and Martha Stewart and would eventually
act as a spokesperson for cosmetic brands
such as Maybelline and Revlon and enjoy the
spotlight as a TV makeover guru. But despite
my deftness at making others beautiful on the
outside, it wasn’t until I was 26 that a physical
crisis forced me to face my own biggest beauty
challenge: to win the compulsive battle against
my body and myself that deprived me of my
self-respect, my looks and eventually my
health. It took this life-altering event for me to
transcend the hair and makeup cover-ups I
had depended on for so long and change everything I thought I knew about
beauty.
“Ironically, my real beauty story
began when I finally let go of my
superficial beauty goals. Motivated in
an entirely new way, I stumbled upon
a better world of information and
options that not only freed me from
my eating disorder but from the selfsabotage,
broken diets and physical
complaints that came with it.
Shedding 10 dress sizes was the most
physically obvious sign of my breakthrough,
but it was a mere side effect of a greater victory:
getting my health and my life back and discovering
my real beauty potential for the first
time.
“Today the woman I am is unrecognizable
from the women I was. The path from the
depleted, disconnected life I once lived to the
way I live and look today had nothing to do
with hard work, sweat or deprivation. My
escape from the physical fate nature had never
intended for me resulted from a complete
reprogramming of my concepts of beauty:
how to get a great body and how to live life to
the fullest.
“My goal is to awaken your excitement,
skepticism, curiosity and hunger for more
information so that you may grab the reins and
direct your own path to your true, vital health
and beauty potential.
“I’m not a doctor, nutritionist or dermatologist
and this book is not intended as a prescription
or treatment but as a source of
information. I encourage healthy skepticism
and I present the scientific research to validate
each area of my approach.”
She dedicates her work “to the woman I
was—for whom this book would have been a
Godsend and to all the women and men who
seek to regain radiance and mastery over their
own physical destinies.”
In his forward, Oz Garcia, internationally
recognized expert on the applications of nutritional
medicine and antiaging techniques
states: “The Truth About Beauty presents a
timely and powerful departure from standard
health and diet practices. I find that too many
beauty and health experts—including some of
my colleagues in the nutrition field—are disconnected
with what really makes or breaks
people’s ability to look their best and treat
themselves in the most caring and healthful
way. Kat James not only uncovers these
missing pieces, she gives us the physical tools
to look and live better than ever—no matter
where we start from.
Garcia continues: “Kat and I share a connection
because we both bring a personal story
of transformation to our work. Kat sees the
potential in everyday people that most cannot
envision for themselves. This book will help
readers uncover that physical potential and
avoid the extreme, tedious—even dangerous—measures we’ve been programmed to believe
are necessary. Anyone who takes an interest in
his or her health and beauty will find powerful
inspiration in the pages of the book, in addition
to well-honed, practical tips that yield
marked improvements in lifestyle.
“Kat James’s approach challenges several
basic notions that many in my field rely on
when they run out of answers. She provides a
much needed wake-up call for the millions of
people who could benefit from her message. In
addition, I strongly recommend Kat’s teachings
to therapists, doctors, fitness trainers and
other nutritionists looking to increase their
insights into health, beauty and wellness and
to improve success with their clients. With
The Truth About Beauty, Kat James raises the
bar for other books in the field by closing the
chapter on outmoded, standard diet and skin
advice and opening a new way of achieving the
beauty that is everyone’s birthright.”
TH: Welcome, Kat. After hearing so much
about your incredible book over the past year,
and reading it myself, I am really pleased to
have the opportunity for you to share your
thoughts with our readers.
KJ: Thank you.
TH: In commenting on the book, Suzanne
Grimes, vice president and publisher of
Glamour magazine, states, “Kat James’
approach represents not only an inspiring path
for personal triumph but a paradigm shift in the pursuit of beauty whose time has come.”
Please share with us your definition of beauty
and how anyone can evolve their own concept
to a more meaningful and self-affirming one.
KJ: Beauty is the fruit of enlightened selfcultivation,
fed by self-knowledge. It’s a
radiant medium through which we share ourselves
with the world. Many people believe
that beauty is just merely a good heart.
However, self-knowledge is the catalyst for cultivating
our truest, inherent beauty.
Redefining beauty in our minds is not a decision
but a process. Through a process of “shedding”
the mind-sets, distractions and modern
assaults, then replacing them with selfaffirming
choices—from what goes on and in
our bodies to the thoughts and cues that go
into our heads—we evolve our own concept,
and manifestations, of beauty. By shedding the
most stubborn, self-endangering myths about
achieving beauty, which I illuminate in my
book, we can then begin to peel away the
layers of physical self-sabotage and uncover a
much more powerful beautiful asset: vitality.
Once we’ve recovered our senses and sensibilities
and risen above the old merry-go-round of
problem-causing regimens, we can then look
back at it in wonder that we were caught up in
something so wasteful of our lives and beauty
in every sense.
TH: You state in the introduction to The
Truth About Beauty that you were prompted
to begin your journey toward transformation
due to a life altering physical crisis caused by a
compulsive eating disorder. When did you
decide it would be important to share your
experience through the book?
KJ: It was at least three years after my
“shrinking phase” ended and my weight had
stabilized. Professionally things had really
taken off, because everyone thought I finally
looked great enough to be a beauty
spokesperson. I was receiving a good deal of
media coverage, was being quoted in all the
beauty magazines and doing makeovers on television.
But I was never given the opportunity—or asked to share—the real truth about
self-transformation. Truly I never set out to be
an author, but at one point enough years
passed, and the tools that transformed me still
had not become mainstream knowledge, I
couldn’t go on doing what I was doing. The
money was incredible and the easy spotlight
was exciting, but I turned down the next
beauty spokesperson contract and decided to
write The Truth About Beauty.
The Truth About Beauty has fulfilled my
need to share what happened to me (and what
continues to happen to me) and to make that
process of shedding accessible to everyone. I
take readers through the process of shedding in
my book, gradually changing our perception,
our sensibilities, as it transforms us, one choice
at a time. As we let go of society’s imposed
ideals and the physical self-sabotage, it encourages
and allows our true potential to emerge.
Vitality has untold plans for each of us, if we
get out of its way. I would have never imagined
the physical image vitality had in store for me.
TH: Once you made the commitment, you
certainly did your homework. The bibliography
section in your book includes over 350
references. It is obvious you felt a serious
responsibility to corroborate every detail covered
in the text.
KJ: I sincerely believe accepting information
on blind faith has gotten us into incredible
trouble, including having blind faith in the
regulatory agencies and powers that set the
guidelines intended to protect us. Even if it is
information from my book, I recommend
readers share it with their doctor. Ultimately
that interaction becomes a tool to generate
enough facts to enable you to make an educated
decision. A qualified health care professional
needs to be your partner in understanding the
problem and executing the solution for any
important personal health issue.
TH: A major portion of The Truth About
Beauty is devoted to guidelines for meeting and
cultivating beauty. Can you give us an overview
of the elements shared in this section?
KJ: They include Drink Yourself Beautiful:
Virtually every beauty factor—skin, hair,
bones, weight, breast health and overall vitality
is affected by the beverages we drink every day.
Fortunately our drink habits are incredibly
easy to tweak for astounding immediate and
cumulative beauty rewards.
Reclaim the Joy of Eating: Learn how to put
self denial behind you and cultivate a love relationship
with food that will beautify your
body, awaken your senses and feed your soul.
When Food is Your Drug: This chapter illuminates
the crucial chemical and nutritional
factors that are too often overlooked in conventional
treatment as well as the dubiously
short-sighted approaches which typically take
their place.
Achieve Maximum Radiance with
Supplements: I consider supplements a key
component in any serious beauty and body
arsenal. Using supplements to change my
chemical relationship with food is what truly
freed me from food addiction and healed the
other serous health issues and imbalances
caused by over a decade of self-abuse. I also
give supplements full credit for reversing my
liver disorder and many other issues I would
have been stuck with for the rest of my life.
Get Back Your Virgin Skin: Good skin is
about wisdom, strategy and restraint. More
often than not it is what you don’t do that
makes your skin beautiful. Reversing regimen
overkill is where you start. From there you take
a comprehensive inside-out approach to each
problem.
Purify Your Potions and Paints: It is imperative
to achieve a basic understanding of what
you put on your body day in and day out. We
absorb much of what we apply and some of it
could be affecting your vitality and your hormonal
state as well as your future. We don’t
need to know everything. Just the red flags.
Strategize A Whole New Skin Approach:
Broadening your understanding of the possible
issues that connect your lifestyle with
your skin can save a lifetime of wasted energy
and dollars on futile treatments.
The Bathroom-Cabinet Makeover: Planning
and implementing your own bathroomcabinet
makeover to maximize and expand
your rewards while minimizing the risks is one
of the most exciting ways to engage your self
respect and self preservation instincts.
Minimize Your Beauty Wild Cards: Beauty
wild cards are the factors we can’t always control.
Wild cards such as the growing risks of
standard health care, prescription drug side
effect, unresolved health and hormone issues,
stress and depression can affect our looks and
our lives in more ways than most of us realize.
Make Life an Authentic Beauty Ritual: Once
the process of shedding is underway, we begin
to rise above the merry-go-round of “virtual”
beauty pursuits and we are suddenly freed up
for more meaningful purposes, such as sharing
our true gifts with the world and letting our
beauty ripple outward through our choices
and our voices.
The Living Beauty Resource Guide gives you
the most evolved array of rare and one-of-akind
products, based on my criteria of purity,
potency, proof and appeal, including supplements,
head-to-toe personal care products,
educational organizations and support that
lets you expand your own standards for the
good life wherever you live.
TH: Please tell us about your upcoming Total Transformation® Cruise and your upcoming
PBS special.
KJ: I’ve just finished taping and hosting my
first public television pledge special called
“The Truth About Beauty,” based on the
book. The show will air nationally starting
this month (March) on over 150 public television
stations throughout the country. It will
be scheduled at different dates and times in
each city, so check your local listings.
My cruise program, Total Transformation,
is a dawn-to-dusk real life experiencing of my
principles, from everything you put on and in
your body and into your mind, to the natural,
self-affirming, high-end makeovers, to the
beauty elixirs and “herbal nightcaps,” to the
sugar-free, premium chocolate on your pillow.
I call it the seven purest and most transforming
days of your life. The next one sets sail on
November 28, 2004. Readers can visit
www.totaltransformation.com to learn more.
TH: Thank you, Kat. The Truth About
Beauty is a landmark achievement. Your
broad definition of beauty, including vitality,
health, a good heart and the fruit of selfcultivation,
fed by self-enlightenment, is valid
to men as well as women. I would suggest it as
a potential life changing gift and an excellent
inclusion to any personal self help library.
With your permission I would like to conclude
our discussion with an excerpt from
The Truth About Beauty regarding supplements
and synthetic drugs.
KJ: Certainly, and thank you very much for
your interest in my work.
“While far fewer double-blind clinical trials
are conducted on natural (unpatentable) substances
than on synthetic drugs, much of the
evidence supporting the supplements is more
conclusive than the conflicting science behind
conventional controversies, such as mammograms,
the role of dietary cholesterol in heart
disease, low-fat diets and certain surgical procedures.
If supplements such as EFAs were
patentable synthetic drugs, the million-dollar
commercial might go something like this:
Common side effects include relief from dry
skin; silkier hair; anti-inflammatory effects
throughout the body; reduced joint pain;
improved immunity, hormone function,
moods and cholesterol levels and countless
other desirables. Warning: Nature heals in
ways we can only begin to predict.”
—The Truth About Beauty by Kat James.
Web Site: informedbeauty.com
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